Group Events

While we work hard, we do find time to get together and have fun as a group as we celebrate achievements, publications, thesis defenses and graduations.

Synthesis

A large part of our work relies on synthesizing novel building blocks with multiple heteroatoms including fluorine, boron, nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus, oxygen, silicon, halogens, and an occasional selenium atom; these are used to explore new methods and create new molecules as probes for biology

Nucleic Acids

We are pioneering the use of synthetically modified nucleosides for selecting cell-surface recognition aptamers, therapeutic DNAzymes for cleaving viral messenger RNA, and sensors for toxic metals.

Peptides

PET Imaging

We have invented trifluoroborates as captors of 18F-fluoride for one-step labeling of biomolecules for PET imaging. Above is our work on dual-mode imaging agents for PET imaging and fluorescent-guided surgery